Sorry to hear about the passing of another downtown South Deerfield mainstay. Leo Rotkiewicz, longtime owner of  Leo’s TV, died last week. My fondest memories of Leo take me back nearly four decades, to the days when our rooftop antennas pulled in three or four boring, black-white-channels and Leo had the only color TVs in […]

I got my first taste of bird hunting on the lower west slope of North Sugarloaf in South Deerfield, along a power line where we roamed as kids and flushed many “patridge.” The flushes surprised us as made our many ascensions up the west face of the mountain to the Indian cave hollowed out of […]

Must be that I’m getting old, because it seems that the characters from my South Deerfield roots are dropping like flies these days. Pint Szelewicki, Henry Boron, George Gromacki, Billy and Leo Rotkiewicz, Paul Whalen, Mike Rura, Paul Giorgioli, all the downtown fixtures gone but not forgotten by those of us who patrolled the four […]

I went through the wake, the funeral and a reception, spoke to many and wrote only ”Andy, 13” in my notebook. He’s Tommy Valiton’s grandson, lives in Austin, Texas, left an indelible impression. I spotted the boy with the kind, smiling eyes opposite me in the J-shaped greeting line and knew immediately who he was. […]

A large, plump crescent moon slumped lazily on end just above the Shelburne hills, leaning slightly northward like a giant overripe cantaloupe wedge in the hot, hazy western sky as I drove home from work late Tuesday night. I’m not sure whether its wry grin, mellow orange hue or both got my nostalgic juices flowing, […]

Another downtown South Deerfield character became a memory overnight Friday when affable barber Gerald “Jerry” Fortier passed at home in his sleep. Many a yarn was spun in that place of business, not to mention the practical jokes and fibs that kept the daily banter lively, Fortier’s devilish, crooked grin perpetual for his loyal customers. […]